Ellen Whitaker wins the Small Grand Prix at the Sunshine Tour

Vejer de la Frontera (ESP), 22 February 2020 – Today in the fourth Longines Fei Ranking class at the Sunshine Tour, British rider Ellen Whitakers shone in a class marked by a tight first round time and a very close jump off. The 1.45m, Ayuntamiento de Barbate Small Grand Prix was held in the grass arena, “Hickstead” with 79 entries. 15 horse and rider combinations went through to the jump off competing for a share of the €25.400 prize money.

Ellen Whitaker (4th in the Houseware GP class last Sunday), went later on in the jump off and literally flew in to the lead on her beautiful, 11yr old, black stallion “Arena UK Winston”. Matthew Sampson went after Ellen but he just could not catch her and took a well deserved second place in the class with less than half a second difference in time.

The rest of the Big Tour classes also had extremely tight times resulting in a lot of riders with faults. In the 1.40m class Marcelo Chirico Ferreira from Uruguay had no such issues and with “Acrobat van T Laar Z”, they won the class in 61.33s beating off 99 other competitors. The 1.35m the winner was another British rider, Robert Murphy, riding “Elan”. The Portuguese rider Tiago Morais took second and another Brit, Jodie Hall Macateer, third. The 1.30m class was won by the Moroccan rider, Rachid Belmokhtar on “Africa Capital Saona de Mescan” and second was the Spanish rider Alejandro Maldonado.

The Medium Tour, 1.35m class was won by a local rider from Seville, Jose Antonio Garcia Diana with the 12yr old mare, “Narla”, who previously competed with the famous Astolfi family. The 1.45m was sponsored by Tio Pepe and held in the David Broome arena with another British win, this time from Alison Barton riding the 9yr old “Billy Rembrandt”. In the 1.30m the German rider Kendra Claricia Brinkop took the win.

The Small Tour C had 32 entries and 6 clear rounds. The American rider Sara McCloskey won riding “Lo Visto Van’t Hulgenrode”. Juan Miguel Febrer and Kyle Bedford were the winners of the 1.15m and the 1.10m, respectively.